


run for the light

by Anemoi



Category: Football RPF
Genre: M/M, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-18
Updated: 2015-11-18
Packaged: 2018-05-02 05:44:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5236511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anemoi/pseuds/Anemoi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Macca and Growler partnership, beginning to end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	run for the light

**Author's Note:**

> well...my self indulgent trashy tribute to [my trashy favs](http://mesutings.tumblr.com/post/133022547459). 90's throwback!

 

 

The first time you see him you don’t really remember it. He was just some kid with big eyes and tiny ears, staring at you and your mates in the training ground. 

   You took pity on him, because he was little and clearly in awe of you, so you went over with a swagger and stuck out your hand. 

   “What’s your name?” 

    “Robbie,” he says. And then you look at him again and start smirking. 

    “You’ve got the tiniest fucking ears,” you crow, reaching out to flick them, and he flushes. 

    “Fuck off,” he says, cringing away. You fling an arm around his shoulders, drag him closer. 

    “Any good at football, Robbie?” you ask. 

    You remember he’d smiled then. You were both little more than kids, but you remember the way he smiled, slow and dead sure. 

    “Might be,” he says, and that’s how it starts. 

  
  


-

  
  


    You and Robbie go way back. That’s the answer you give every time it comes up in conversation or interviews or whatever. You’ve known him before he could take free kicks, before he was any good at finishing, when he was dribbling up and down the training pitch every day till it got full dark, head down and intent. He was like a charcoal speed painting, with all the edges shaded in, the important parts, if you will. Missing the delicacy of what he would become later, the killer in the six yard box. A knife through hot butter, the way he moves through the opposition. 

    You were both knives. It’s not arrogance to admit it, because that’s the way it was. You didn’t have to care about anything else at all, because you were all flying and there was nothing anyone can do to bring you down. Not the mancs, not your parents or girlfriends or the club when you’re all so good. What can they say? you’ll go to training with a hangover. It didn’t matter. You were still better than everyone else on two hours sleep, so you went out, you and Robbie and all the lads, and raised hell wherever you went, whether in town or on the football pitch. 

  
  


-

  
  


     The first time you and Robbie fucked you weren’t drunk. The set up to your nights are always the same. Pub after pub after pub until you can’t even say your last name without tripping up. It’s always Redders, Rob, Johnny, their faces blurry and animal savage in the bad lighting, shirt collars wet with the alcohol, some drunk birds hanging off their arms. More often than not you’ve got one under each arm too; you like them blonde and petite, big tits, laughs at your jokes. Whatever. It’s the same set up. Always. Drink after drink after drink, someone calls a cab and you go back home with the ceilings spinning and fuck someone and hope she’s gone when you wake up. 

  
  


But the first time with Robbie wasn’t at a party, even though it would have been easy. He’s always there, in the middle of things, laughing. You have this stray thought sometimes, the  _ my best mate’s beautiful  _ thought. Out of nowhere really, not in the way that girls on magazines are beautiful, obviously. He really wasn’t in any sense, he’s got that weird scraggly hairline, beaky nose thing going, those terrible fucking small ears that you would never stop ragging him about. You suppose it’s probably after-images of him dribbling the ball seared into your mind. 

  
  


He was still beautiful though. It’s something else. All the girls see it, just the way he sits. Maybe you’re too tall and skinny, but you’ve always felt so self conscious next to him, like you’ve got an extra arm or something. 

  
  


So the first time you had been totally aware of it. No drinks, just tea that Robbie made and the television on with an old show that you’ve badgering him to change for the past half hour. 

“You’ve seen it already!” 

“No I haven’t,” he says doggedly, sipping his tea. You reach out and flick his ear, propped on one elbow on his bed. 

“Growler…” you say, trying to keep your voice serious but knowing you’re wheedling. “Change the fucking channel.” 

He spares you a glance and you both crack up, you burying your face in his sheets. They smell like him, and in the sleepy post training evening haze that makes you feel a little funny. 

He sees your face and sets his cup down, concerned. 

“What?” he says, putting a hand on your chest, “You alright Macca?” 

“It’s the tea,” you say half pitifully, stretching out on the bed. “I feel-” you make a face at him, scrunching your eyes up in a way that makes him laugh. He obliges, snorting into his hand. The television’s still droning on, and you’re going out of your mind with boredom. 

“Is it too early to go out with the lads,” you wonder, staring at his ceiling. 

“We have training early tomorrow,” he reminds you. 

You make a dismissive sound, waving your hand instead of trying to articulate anything. He laughs again and switches off the tv, flopping back beside you and making the entire mattress wobble. 

“Watch it,” you say, and maybe the new training regime’s getting to you but you’re boneless with tiredness. You shut your eyes for a bit instead, muffling a yawn.

“Macca,” Robbie says, and you open your eyes. 

_ His  _ eyes were this bottle green, clear to the bottom. It’s the first thing you noticed about him, so long ago, and the way he’d stared at you, the wide eyed boy with a ball under his arm. And now the afternoon light makes a warm stripe across his face. His eyes are very bright. You notice all these things in concept, but you’re really concentrating on him, getting hesitantly closer. 

 “What?” you ask instead, and he bends over you, buries his face in your neck. You’re startled into laughing, but then he’s pulling down your jeans and he’s got a hand on your dick and you’re making different sounds. You tug his shirt off and whistle, mock admiringly, and that makes you both laugh so much it’s no longer awkward or terrifying. It’s Robbie, after all, Robbie who you grew up with, Robbie who you’ve done everything with, and jerking each other off on a sleepy midweek afternoon was easy to accept as just another thing you did together. 

  
  


-

  
  


And then it becomes- too easy. Easy for you to turn something joking into something not, fighting for the remote on the sofa and before you know it you’ve got him under you, jacking him with one hand determinedly, slagging off his small ears at the same time, getting off on him laughing breathlessly and the way he looks at you. The way he looks at you all the time. 

 It’s always so easy. When you’re on your knees in the showers, staring him in the eye while you suck him off, with Barnes singing loud and off key in the next stall over. Both of you loving the thrill of it. 

 Easy, really, the way he’d brush your hair out of your face roughly when he’s pushing into you, whispering, “Macca? You alright?” And you don’t say anything back because you don’t trust yourself to, and you’re glad it’s dark in the room and you can’t see his eyes.  

  
  


 “Should I cut my hair? It’s too fucking long,” you ask him once, self conscious, squinting at your own reflection above the bathroom sink. He snorts. 

 “You’d look like a fucking matchstick,” he says. You shrug. Then he wraps a stray curl around his finger and tugs, and you raise your eyebrows at him. He grins, then, big charming boyish grin. The captain had called you both cheeky Scouse monkeys just the day before. You feel a matching smile on your face. 

  “Come on,” you say, and sling an arm around his shoulders, ruffle his terribly dyed platinum blonde hair. He protests, but you keep him in a headlock, laughing until he escapes, red faced. He’d always been the perfect height for that. 

  
  


-

  
  


And you were both so good. 

  
  


Not just you and Robbie, but everyone. Redknapp to McManaman to Fowler, and Robbie feints, the ball’s at your feet again and you’re cutting past the defenders like they’re not even there. They aren’t. It’s just you, the ball, the net, and the screaming fifty thousand.  

 And Robbie, slim fingered hands cupping your face before Barnes and Collymore run up and for a minute, just the two of you tucked together, the whole sky so dizzyingly blue.  

 You’re twenty three and unafraid. 

  
  


-

  
  


The seasons come and go and blur into these things you can’t tally up. Robbie’s face in the glare of the floodlights during a night race, his hair stirred up by the wind as the horses go past. You’re all still flying on the pitch, or at least, you are. And he was, too. You’re number seven and he’s number nine now. You’re the pillars on which Liverpool rests. 

 He bleeds on your sofa after pub fights till he’s sobered up enough to go home, pack of ice across half his face, slow trickle of blood running down his nose. Sometimes it’s the other way around, and you’re the one reeling, his hands gentle around your pounding head. Sometimes you both wake up in the middle of last night’s mess, and it’s running out of whichever hotel or pub or whoever’s house that’s been trashed, yawning and laughing and barely on time for practice. 

 You’d think a lifetime of not caring would have prepared you for it, but in this, as in many other things, you were wrong. 

  
  


-

  
  


 It’s after another night out. Robbie disappears with a girl an hour after you hit the latest pub, and it leaves you somehow irritated. Off your game. You pick a girl half out of spite, knowing she’s Robbie’s type. 

 “You should’ve stayed,” you pout, later, when you’re both on the sidewalk waiting for the cab. “Paul was killing himself trying to drink the whole tub we mixed up. You missed it.” It wasn’t anything more than a fumble in the bathroom, probably, since Robbie had turned up in time for Paul to throw up over the bar and over your date, too. She’d left but you hadn’t minded.

   You’re aware it sounds vaguely pathetic. He raises one eyebrow and manages to look both hammered and judgmental. 

   “Well you were off with that other bird. With the-“ He makes a gesture in front of his chest with both hands. You tip your head back and wince at the sound your neck makes, like the crack of rusty door hinges. 

    “Come on,” he says, and he’s coming closer, so fond of you it makes you sick to the bottom of your stomach. He’s got a hand around your middle, looking up at you, stupid grin, stupid tiny ears, stupid red face. You sort of want to run down the curb and out of Liverpool. 

 The cab pulls up before you do anything stupid, like run, or kiss him. On the ride back you’re both leaning on opposite doors, facing each other, his heavy weight against your side.

  
  


You both get off at his place, since it was closer and you spent the night most days anyway. You don’t get to the bedroom, or the spare bedroom, or the couch. He makes a surprised sound when you shove him against the wall in the hallway and crowd up against him, using your height.

“Macca- what,” he says, laughing a little, until you bite his neck, little nips at first and then sinking your teeth in to the junction where it meets his shoulder, and he groans, hand clamping down on your arm. You work down his pants, awkward because he’s not helping, just kind of staring, a little out of it. The lights are off and the hallway’s dark. 

  So you keep at it, bringing him off with your hand while you lick and bite and leave his neck and shoulder a mess. You mumble, “Hey tiny ears,” before biting his earlobe and he laughs. He swears, too, doesn’t even try to keep it muffled, hitting your arm with the flat of his palm when he comes. You hold him up against the wall, his whole weight, quiet. 

  
  


-

  
  


Later you’re in the shower, and you tip the bottle upside down into your palm but it leaves nothing except faint red circles. “Robbie!” You yell, realising you can’t hear him over the running water anyway. “You’re out of shampoo.” 

 You hear him knocking and pull the curtain aside. “It’s not locked,” You say, and you expected him to maybe open it a silver and hand you a new bottle. He doesn’t. He pushes it wide open and stands there grinning. Your heart’s somewhere on the floor or something, and maybe this is some fun new prank so you try for a frown, the water only falling on your right side while your left is out of the spray, shoulder goose-pimpling in the cold. 

  “Hand it over, tiny ears.” You say. He comes two steps closer and shoves you gently back into the spray. Soap’s sliding down your forehead close to your eyes. You can’t see a single fucking thing and his hands are on your shoulders, on your waist, and you try batting him off, the cheeky little- but he kisses you. Right on the mouth. Because you could never back down from a dare, and this felt like one, the biggest dare ever, you grab the back of his neck blindly and kiss him back, force his mouth open, thinks you can hear his moan- or maybe feel it, you’re close enough for that- your tongues sliding against each other, not breathing, the water falling everywhere, in your eyes, in your mouth. He tastes like hard water and Robbie. 

   Afterwards he clears out, sheepish, to change his wet clothes, and you finish showering. You forget about not having enough shampoo until you’re dressed, and when you pull open the door there it was. A new bottle, set on the floor in front of the door. 

   That’s when you feel it. That’s when you knew.     

  
  


-

  
  


Next training Jamie saunters up and whistles. “Your bird’s got a big mouth,” He says, grinning. Robbie glares at him and rolls his eyes. You can’t look away from the purple bruises on his shoulder, right there for everyone to see if they wanted to. The red crescent curves of your teeth marks against his freckly pale skin. 

  
  


Spelled out blunt- what you were both doing hits you in the middle of training, like a nasty cold you’ve been trying to fight off but still gets you in the end anyway. 

  
  


-

  
  


“ Oh fuck off,” he says, disbelieving. You’ve just said  _ Don’t think we should mess around anymore.  _ Like a break up with a bird or something, a fling you didn’t care about, except this was Robbie. And then he shoves you against the wall and smashes your mouths together. You push him away. 

He’s staring at you, then, hurt. 

“ You know we can’t. It’s. Come on,” You don’t know how to spell it out, that you’re afraid, that whatever this was between you was going to mess you up and neither of you can afford that, so he should just stop  _ staring  _ at you. That you’re afraid, mostly. 

“Alright,” Robbie says, and he walks away, shoulders hunched. 

You stare after him, hands empty, chest empty, mind a blank. You pick up your kit bag slowly, and walk to your car. He’s driven off already. You turn the key in the lock and listen to the car stutter up, sick to your bones but knowing you did the right thing. For once you’ve done the right thing. No wonder it’s fucking overrated. 

  
  


-

  
  


It takes him a while to come back. He’s going steady with a girl, and you’re on your best behavior when he introduces you.  _ This is Macca, my best mate.  _ She’s lovely, grounded, has a wicked sense of humor. You were perfectly polite, because you can do that now. You keep a straight face and Robbie’s relieved, and you feel suddenly, terribly, old. You’re only 26, but hell, they felt like dog years. He comes back slowly to you, but he does. 

You jab him in the ribs, the next training after, like nothing had happened. He stares at you, a little confused, still slightly hurt. You hate that it’s noticeable.  

“What?” You smirk at him. You watch him determinedly shove the hurt away. 

“What you’self,” he says, stubbornly, steals the ball from under your feet. You watch him go, swearing, but you’re admiring the way he flits, blur of color and shape. 

 It leaves you only a little empty. But nothing harmed. Still friends. Best friends. 

  
  


-

  
  


You never talk about it again, afterwards. You think he might’ve, there was a look in his eyes, when you told him the deal was going through, you’re going to Spain to play for Real Madrid. But he hadn’t done anything at all, just swallowed and shrugged and said something about getting all the lads together for a drink before you left. 

So you left, and he got married, and then you got married, and the days spun out to months and then years. You’re struggling for playing time and wondering, the same way you wonder about the years you have left on the pitch, when you got  _ old.  _ It felt like something you should be able to pinpoint, but it wasn’t some discrete moment, rather an accumulation of instants that turned to your knees aching, your back aching, you name it. 

  
  


You call him up idly to complain. It wasn’t an unusual occurrence, by any means. You probably phoned him more often than your mum.

“Well,” he says. “Come back then.” 

You snort. “What?”

“Come back. I'm working a deal to go for Man City.”

“City?” you say slowly. Out of your bedroom window the distance of Madrid grows further, wreathed in blue.

You're kind of sick of it. Still trying to fit in after four years. You’ve won enough, anyway. You've gotten what you wanted, the European nights and the champions league trophy, so what's the point in staying? You've done what you set out to do, and-

“Come back home,” Robbie sounds tinny on the phone, and then he's scolding his kid for something, and you smile at the image of it. Robbie being a dad. 

“Manchester?” 

“You know what I mean,” Robbie laughs, and you do.

  
  


-

  
  


He comes to get you at the airport. 

“Hello, small ears,” you say. 

And there will be time enough to catch up, you realise, time enough for laughing in late night pubs and roaring along to old songs when Redders comes up from London and playing with your best friend by your side again. So here you both are. Blue and then red and now blue again, and it was never going to be easy and it won’t be easy now. You have so much left to fight for, still. So much left to prove that may go unproven. The humiliation of slipping from the best of the best to being merely mediocre, and then not even that, to endure. The light marks out the plain grids on the airport floor’s clean linoleum, and he’s stepping forward, smiling. He’s old and the years haven’t done his looks any favors. It hasn’t helped you, either. Even your  _ ankles  _ ached. 

  
  


But for now you see him and his stupid tiny pasta shell ears, and the way he comes up perfectly to your shoulder, easy height for you to wrap your arms around him. And it feels like before. It feels like twenty three with the whole world waiting. 

  
  
  


-

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


You’re sitting in the garden, checking the horse races for the day on your phone, and Robbie yells your name from the the house. 

“Beer?” 

You roll your eyes, as though that was a question he still needed to ask, but still gives him a thumbs up, not bothering to say it out loud. 

He hands you a cold beer and sit down on the bench beside you with a huff. It’s very quiet, and Robbie’s wife and kids aren’t home yet. You’re over for dinner again, a familiar ritual. 

“Macca?” he says, and you look up from your phone. 

You look him in the eye. He’s got these bottle green eyes, clear to the bottom, you know them better than your own. And now you suddenly remember what it was like to kiss him, what it was like to miss him, and the thought of it makes your heart turn in your chest. Those long years behind you now. He doesn’t say anything more, so you sling an arm across his shoulders, pull him closer. 

“Been a while, hasn’t it, Growler.” 

“Yeah, Macca. I’m fat. You’re fat.” 

  
You laugh, and he laughs too, and the afternoon light settles around the both of you, hazy and golden.

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
